Character in politicians is vastly overrated

It seems that a Colorado
candidate for Congress, Angie Paccione, really filed for personal
bankruptcy in 2001,as, according to the administrative office of
the U.S. Courts, did 1,452,029 other people. Why should anyone
care?

Because Marilyn Musgrave, the two-term Republican
incumbent Paccione is running against, has informed the world about
the bankruptcy in a radio ad. Just as Paccione, in her radio ad,
has informed the world, that in January of that year, Musgrave
drove into the rear of another car in Adams County, and then "left
the scene of the accident, did not file a police report, did not
immediately call the police."

Apparently true, but also
apparently legal; The damage didn't meet the $500 threshold that
would have required Musgrave to call the cops and to stay until
they arrived.

Again, why should anyone care? Let's
analyze both cases, putting the two candidates in the worst
possible light: Paccione is sloppy about personal finances;
Musgrave can be arrogant and hardhearted, especially if, as the
folks in the other car claimed, she left while one of them was
still in pain.

Big deal. Should Paccione win and the
Democrats reclaim the House majority, it would be at least a decade
before she'd get to be chair of the Ways and Means Committee or
anyplace else where her fiscal capability would matter. As for
Musgrave, it's hard to see why a voter who agreed with her on most
public policy issues would vote against her because she may have
been a nasty twit one day.

Yet, as we enter the final
weeks before the 2006 midterm election, we are reminded again that
we live in a political culture in which personal history dominates
public policy. Not that this is entirely new; folks always
preferred voting for a candidate they found appealing. But thanks
in part to political journalists who dislike politics, and who
therefore tell voters to choose the contender "you'd rather have a
beer with," that intangible known as character trumps such
irrelevancies as wars, taxes, schools and health care.

This reality has two consequences, one tactical and one
philosophical. The tactical consequence should soothe Republicans
who look at the latest polls showing Democratic candidates two,
four, seven, even nine points ahead in so many races. Unless that
Democrat is over 50 percent in the polls, he or she is still
vulnerable to late political ads based on something in public,
business or private life. At the Capitol Hill offices of the
Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, a staff of 10 has been
doing "oppo" research (that's looking for goodies on the other guy)
for more than a year. The Republicans are not being cute about
this; the purpose of the oppo research is attack ads.

"You haven't seen the majority of the negative ads yet," committee
spokesman Carl Forti told the Los Angeles Times
in late September. "When people are looking at national issues that
are not breaking our way, what you want to do is focus on your
opponent," said Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole.

Add in the
superior GOP get-out-the-vote operation, and any Democrat who isn't
at least three points ahead in the last pre-election polls is
likely to lose. There is hardly a state in the Rocky Mountain
region without at least one Republican seat that looks vulnerable.
But under these circumstances, vulnerable does not mean lost. Not
yet.

As to the philosophical consequence, the emphasis on
character only enhances the severance of politics from governing.
If the decisive swing voters opt for a candidate based on his or
her cuteness instead of on his or her position on Iraq or Social
Security, then Iraq and Social Security recede in importance.

But here's how dumb it is to choose the candidate "you'd
rather have a beer with": You won't. I speak here as one of the
one-tenth of 1 percent of the folks who has had beers with
candidates for the House, the Senate, even President. I did not
achieve this lofty status because I am nobler or cuter than the
rest of you; it just came with the job.

And you know
what? Those beers gave me little sense of what those candidates
were really like. You might tell your swing-voter friends to have a
beer with friends and neighbors, but to vote for candidates whose
views on major issues are closer to their own. In politics, unlike
the truly important pursuits like love, literature or baseball,
character is highly overrated.

Jon Margolis is
a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News in Paonia, Colorado (hcn.org). He covers
Washington, D.C., from the safe distance of
Vermont.